Like many of us, I recently put my H16 away for the winter and discovered a that the forestay had a large number of broken strands. The shrouds have the plastic sheaths, do I assume that they are in the same condition? Most important to me is to understand what caused this, can it be avoided?

The most common is bending the wire too tightly. Avoid kinks and be careful when coiling / uncoiling the wires. Don't try to "unbend" a slight kink - you'll just make the wire more brittle.

Salt water also penetrates between the strands, under the plastic sheaths and in the nicropress sleeves. It provides a breeding ground for corrosion. Keep the wires clean, rinse in fresh water (if you sail in salt water) and wipe them down with WD40 occasionally.

Standing rigging in all Hobies is pretty important. These are one of those things that are dangerous to captain, crew and craft upon failure. I replace mine on a regular basis and inspect mine before rigging. When in doubt throw it out. Use the old good wires as emergency replacements. Go with the largest wire available from your hobie dealer do not go cheap.

Anyone care to take a guess at the predicted longevity of the standing rigging in a saltwater environment? Does Hobie have a duty cycle recommendation to replace all standing rigging? I'm going into season 5 on my current set. I leave my boat on the beach six months out of the year. Am I rolling the dice?

Anyone care to take a guess at the predicted longevity of the standing rigging in a saltwater environment? Does Hobie have a duty cycle recommendation to replace all standing rigging? I'm going into season 5 on my current set. I leave my boat on the beach six months out of the year. Am I rolling the dice?

Last year, we had a guy at our (ocean) beach break a shroud on a fairly new boat (2008 I think) and on a pretty mild day. The boat spends 6 months of the year on the beach So I'd say that's a fairly reasonable benchmark. There's no way of knowing for sure how long a shroud will last until it breaks. But I'd say for salt water use, it's best to replace them every 2 to 5 years depending on use.

On a related note, I've started to look into the possibility of having a set of heavy duty 3/16" diameter shrouds built for my 18 which would have about a 50% higher breaking strength than stock.

I think fresh vs salt is key. I would bet the above is dead on for salt (better change every 3-5 years). In fresh water, steel simply lasts a very long time.

If I told you how old the standing rigging was on our boats you would either say I'm crazy or a liar or both.

Please note: These boats no longer race. We do sail them as hard as the wind will let us. We are on a small (2mi x 2mi) lake where rescue is a matter of waving your arms to the passing power boat.

These haven't seen salt in 20 years. They stay up year round and except for inspections and putting new mast disks in don't get taken down. All of the rigging looks new. No broken strands, no corrosion etc. I am aware there could be things going on that I can't see, but the only failure we've had was a main halyard that I knew was bad (broken strands) and I made the decision to sail it until it broke.

That said we are in Alaska and they are frozen solid without much UV light 6 months out of the year. Its pretty close to dry, dark storage conditions.

Last summer I was in a two day distance race where we had 30 knots gusting to 40 the entire time. After two days of sheeting in hard and hanging on for dear life, this is what I found after dropping the rig (H21 forestay). I don't know how it held, but I consider myself a lucky man that the mast didn't come down on top of us.

Does anyone make their own standing rigging? It seems fairly simple to do.

Is there a big advantage in coated wires? I plan to use the boat in salt water. I'm thinking uncoated may be better.

After having a stock Hobie 18 shroud break, we started making our own one size bigger using coated galvanized steel and nicopress sleeves. We are considering going to spliced Dyneema for standing rigging.

yep. From my favorite boat supply store: Lowes. Never broken one yet, used it on a 16, 18, various boats my dad owns. I can build three sets for the cost of one from hobie. I also go one size up on the wire.

yep. From my favorite boat supply store: Lowes. Never broken one yet, used it on a 16, 18, various boats my dad owns. I can build three sets for the cost of one from hobie. I also go one size up on the wire.